Tag Archives: Christopher Renstrom

The official title of the prompt is Larding which has interesting connotations, but Braiding, given to us by ouliposter Jody Rich, is so much prettier. I had a ball putting this together but then anything that smacks of remixing… My only problem, as I posted to our Facebook group, was finding a way to lay the work draft out so that I was able to see the places where I needed to add lard. I was using highlights as a code and going nuts, so when you take this on, my advice is to break after each sentence and triple space between, so you know where a new sentence needs to go.

To watch how one builds, head over to Amanda Earl’s and you can watch paragraph by paragraph. After I had my final paragraph, I chose to play with line-breaks. My sources were diverse [and became a mash-up of two newspapers]and while it may sound like I relied heavily on the horoscope, I used several phrases from the great lime crisis article. I didn’t know such passion was connected with limes.

‘Aka “line stretching.” From your newspaper text, pick two sentences. Add a new sentence between the first two; then two sentences in the new intervals that have become available; and continue to add sentences until the passage has attained the length desired. The supplementary sentences must either enrich the existing narrative or create a new narrative continuity.’ Yes, all sentences from the newspaper.

Original sentences:

Never underestimate the power of imagination. Stay true to your vision and the pieces will soon fall into place.

The poem:

the warfare between man and wife

Never underestimate the power of imagination: Imagine
being alone in a strange place with peculiar scents,
frightening noises, and no food, water or shelter. One minute
you’re cold and aloof and the next minute you’re distant
and unfriendly, cloudy with a chance of rain. Warnings are posted.

The last thing anyone needs is more finger pointing. You
weren’t sure these past few days, but you stood your ground.
The timing could hardly be worse. Don’t make it a guessing game.
Ask straight out. There’s such a thing as being in the right,
at the wrong time. A recent misstep, some signs of the times.

One might have a sense of abandonment. Overcast with a chance
of a thunderstorm and rain showers isn’t the end of the world.
Stay true to your vision — the pieces will fall into place.

If you are enjoying reading these, be sure to head over to today’s haiku page at the Found Poetry Review.

The prompt:

‘The haiku is a Japanese poetic form whose most obvious feature is the division of its 17 syllables into lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. Haikuisation has sometimes been used by Oulipians to indicate the reduction of verses of normal length to lines of haiku-like brevity. Select three sentences from a single newspaper article and ‘haiku’ them.’

The process:

One thing I love about our oulipo-ing ourselves [aside from taking oulipo and creating every part of speech in existence for it], is that we can constrain the constraints, or tweak them. In the haikuisation of sentences in the newspaper, I went with ‘haiku-like brevity’ from the rules above. The one thing I tried to maintain is the volta, the turn from beginning to end, which in haiku, is rather abrupt.

The poem:

ARIES

When you’re feeling foul
it isn’t easy to be fair —
your effort is appreciated.

TAURUS

Before it’s too late
straighten out these mixed signals:
you are pushing someone away.

GEMINI

When tempers are tense
you need to watch what you say:
insinuate, don’t agitate.

CANCER

Profitable contacts are about;
you want to meet and greet.
Don’t let today go to waste.

LEO

For more breathing room
reshuffling is in order —
discover along the way.